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Each patient’s clinical data is constantly changing: new lab tests are performed, new clinical notes are written, new medications are being prescribed, etc. The Patient Summary tab is designed to present the provider with all new clinical data for all of the patients on their selected patient list. This is a running summary of the clinical data they have not yet viewed. For a provider, this is a quick way to see “what’s new?” for their entire patient list. Once they view a particular item (for example, a particular lab result), whether via this option or any other option in the Commure Pro system, that item is marked as viewed and then is removed from the Patient Summary tab when the data is refreshed.
There is also a display option called New Results on the standard Patient Data Display that is almost identical to the Patient Summary tab. It provides the same type of information (all new unviewed clinical data), and has many of the same controls for viewing and sorting. However, the New Results display option contains the unviewed clinical data for only one individual patient, while the Patient Summary tab contains data for all of the patients on your patient list. Please refer to Viewing New Results for a Patient for more information on the New Results display option.
To view the Patient Summary report, follow these steps:
  1. Click the Patient Summary tab. The Patient Summary displays the unviewed clinical data for the patients on your list.
    When viewing for the first time, this list of unviewed clinical information uses the new user defaults set by your administrator. However, you can change your preferences at any time by clicking the Options button in the Patient Summary title bar.
    It contains columns for the Patient name, the Details icon , the Type of clinical data item, the Date of the item, a brief Description of the item, and important Details. The actual information shown in the Date, Description, and Details columns varies by the Type of clinical data involved. The table below describes the contents of the columns for each type of clinical item.
TypeDateDescriptionDetails
Allergyalways blankallergen (penicillin, bee sting, etc.)type of allergy (food, drug, etc.) and reaction (nausea, rash, etc.)
Clinical Notedate/time the note was writtentype of note (consult, nursing assessment, etc.)author of the note
Medicationmedication order start date/timemedication name and SIG informationdate last administered to the patient (if administered)
Problemdate of onsetICD-9 code and descriptionproblem status (active, inactive, etc.)
Test Resulttest result date/timetest result nametest result status (final, pending, etc.)
Lab Result Panellab result date/timepanel namenormalcy status (critical, abnormal, or normal) and status (final, pending, etc.)
  1. If desired, use any of the following options to control the amount, type, or format of the information you wish to display, as well as the patients for whom you wish to display it:
    • Patient List drop-down: Select the patient list that you wish to use for this web session. Patient lists can be a List, View, or Assignment list (or sublist).
    When you first access the Patient Summary tab, the initial setting for the Patient List drop-down is the same as that on the Patient List tab (or None Chosen, if no patient list was selected there). From that point forward, any patient list selection you make on the Patient Summary tab functions independently of that on the Patient List tab, enabling you to have different patient lists selected on each. Furthermore, once you select a patient list for the Patient Summary tab, that setting is retained as you switch from tab to tab, until you change it again.
    • Timeframe drop-down list: Select the date range of the information you wish to display.
    • Limit the amount of information to view: You can limit the number of clinical data items that appear in the Patient Summary window using a combination of the Limit to field and the current sort order. Simply type a number in the Limit to field and then press the Enter key on your keyboard. For example, if the report were sorted in reverse chronological order by date, and you entered 50 in the Limit to field, it would show only the 50 most recent items.
    • Select the type(s) of clinical data to view: Click the Options… button to select which of the clinical data items you wish to view at any given time. For example, if you are considering prescribing a medication, you might be interested in viewing only the allergies, medications, lab results, and problems. Simply click the checkboxes for those items that you wish to display.
    You may note that the Lab Panels item allows you to select the criticality of the lab results that you want to see, if any at all:
    • Critical: Include only critical unviewed lab results
    • Abnormal: Include only abnormal and critically abnormal unviewed lab results
    • All: Include all unviewed lab results (critical, abnormal, and normal)
    • None: Do not show any lab results
    • Click Mark All Viewed to mark a patient’s clinical data as viewed. When you do so, you are presented with two options:
      • Mark All Viewed: Click this option to mark as viewed all of the items in the summary display. All the items in the display will be removed.
      • Mark All Viewed Before Today: Click this option to mark as viewed all of the items that have a date earlier than today. Only items with a date of today will be displayed.
    Only those items that are currently displayed in the Patient Summary view are marked as viewed when you select either of these options. For example, if your Timeframe were set to Last 7 Days, any items that were older than seven days ago would not be included in the summary display, and therefore would not be marked as viewed.
    Similarly, if you had set your Options to view only Lab Results, only the lab results would be marked as viewed. Since the nature of this option is to show only unviewed items, once you click Refresh , or log out and back in, the items you marked as viewed are removed from the display. Of course, you can always look at these items again by clicking on its respective display option in the Patient Data Display (available on the Patient List tab, or by clicking the Details icon ).
    • Change the sort order: You can change the sort order of the report by clicking on any column heading. By default, the items are sorted by Type of item, so that all of the allergies are grouped together, then all of the clinical notes, etc.
  2. Once the summary display is showing the clinical items that are of interest to you, you can view additional details for any clinical item. Click on any clinical item in the summarized list to see further details about it. When you do so, the system displays the same detail window(s) that would normally appear if you had clicked on the same type of data item in its own display option in the Patient Data Display. Please refer to the following sections for more information about the various detail displays: